 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Design at home. Design a dinner party. An image of a menu in French, Parc-au-Bois-Ile-de-France. The menu has various items and drawings. A cartoon waiter in black and white holding a platter with a giant bottle of champagne. A white woman with dark brown curly hair, wearing a white jumpsuit, standing in front of Julia Child's kitchen from the National Museum of American History. The kitchen has green cabinets, various utensils hanging on nearly every surface, and a kitchen table with a yellow tablecloth in the middle of the room. Hi! Welcome to Design at Home. I'm Cecilia, an educator at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Today we're going to be looking at how design plays a part in tradition and planning festive meals. And we'll use that as inspiration to create a mood board for our own dinner party design. A picture of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. A 19th century brick mansion with three floors. The facade is covered in wisteria. In rapid succession, images of the current exhibitions appear on screen. Cooper Hewitt is a museum that's all about design. But what are some things that can be designed? Well, design is all around us, and you can learn about design just by observing the tools and spaces that you use every day. You can design a utilitarian tool, or object. Something you use often, like a fork, or a knife. But design can also be decorative. And for special occasions, like wallpaper, or a tablecloth. A checkered tablecloth, or napkin. But did you know that experience can also be designed? Some of the most exciting and meaningful experiences can be during celebrations that take place through a shared meal. A great example of this are holidays. A paper menorah, a paper Santa Claus, a stamp. Many of which are celebrated through traditional meals that are held every year. Do you ever wish that you could create a new holiday or tradition? To help you get some ideas, I will walk you through how I built my new meal time tradition. And I'll share some inspiration from the Cooper Hewitt collection. Before we get started brainstorming, you'll want to have something to write with and something to write on. Use your writing tool to make four separate sections on your paper. One for each of the components. Let's start with the guests. These are the people who will be invited to our party. They can be friends and family you haven't seen in a while, or we can get even more creative. What if you invited all the people in your town to have the same birthday as you? And you all had a giant group birthday party? Or maybe you invite all the people who have the same name as you? I think for my dinner party, I'm going to invite all the people who were born under the sign of Scorpio. Supermodel Kendall Jenner, meet former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Now take a moment to brainstorm your ideas. Consider this and write it down. How many people would you like to attend? Who will these individuals be? What is the commonality between the people you might invite? For example, common beliefs, experiences, interests, etc. The second component to planning our festive occasion is the vibe. This can be where your party will take place, but also how the five senses interact with your celebration. What are you seeing around you? Is it at your grandma's house? Art work and images from the Cooper Hewitt's collection, including an image of a 19th century bedroom. The art instituted a Fort Lauderdale advertisement showing a cartoon image of objects at the beach. Is it at the beach? Once you decide where this is taking place, think about what you're hearing. Is there music? A bit of jazz perhaps? Posters advertising jazz concerts have stripes reminiscent of piano keys. One advertisement has hands playing the piano. Or maybe disco is more the vibe. What do you smell? Is the food going to be cooking on an open fire? Can you smell the firewood burning? A campfire in the woods. I think my vibe is an evening at the beach. A pink sunset. Accompanied by a bit of Boston all night. With the smell of the ocean in the air. Now take a moment to brainstorm your ideas. Write this down. What setting will your event take place in? What will the event look like? What will the event sound like? If you were to describe your event in three words, what would those words be? The French menu from the opening image appears on screen. Now let's talk about the menu. What are we going to serve at this party? This depends on who your guests are and what you're celebrating. Do your guests have dietary restrictions such as being gluten free, vegan, or maybe they keep kosher? My shindig will be a birthday party, so we're definitely going to have cake and ice cream. Advertisements containing hand-drawn images of birthday cakes. And since my guests are celebrities, we'll serve some fancy seafood or derbs like oysters and caviar followed by lobster. Various images from the Cooper Hewitt's collection including a black and white illustration of a lobster. A magazine advertisement in black and white shows a photograph of a man in tuxedo eating dinner. Over the image, there are dozens of lines of text containing instructions on how to remove stains such as onion soup, mustard sauce, and creme caramel from your shirt. Now take a moment to brainstorm your ideas. Consider this and write it down. Think about your guests. Are there any dietary restrictions or preferences? How would you like your food to be served? Buffet style, formal sit-down, or maybe something else? How many courses will there be? This brings us to the fourth and perhaps most exciting component to dive into. The objects and accessories you choose for your meal time celebration can be selected for many reasons. These accessories can be the silverware. Various images from Cooper Hewitt's collection of forks and spoons flash on the screen. Some are silver, some have gold, others are plastic. The tablecloths. An advertisement for Herman Miller's summer picnic 1985 appears on screen with sunflowers, grapes, a tablecloth, and ants. A white napkin with printed red flowers and vines, the name Marguerite mercantile. The napkins. Or the glasses you use. A punch bowl set with dozens of aluminum cups with walnut wood handles. The set resembles the planet Saturn. Some objects can celebrate different cultures like these silver chopsticks that combine an Asian form with classical western ornament. Some pieces are used for certain kinds of food. For example, these oyster forks, which are small with three prongs designed to extract the meat from a palm-sized oyster. Or the ice cream knife, which is perfect for cutting gently through frozen treats. Others add color, such as this picnic flatware set. A set of colorful forks and knives made of wooden plastic. Or this napkin. A tan tablecloth with geometric shapes. Now take a moment to brainstorm your ideas. Consider this and write it down. What will your place settings look like? In this, consider the design of the plates, utensils, and cups. What will the chairs and tables look like? Will the seating be low to the ground, high bar stools, a traditional chair? Maybe a picnic blanket. What other special design objects might you incorporate to bring your occasion to life? Now that we have our four components of our meal time celebration, let's put it all together in a mood board. Before we get started, what is a mood board? A mood board is a tool that many designers use to represent and communicate their ideas and designs. You can build a mood board using collaged images, multi-media materials, or even using digital tools or platforms. For mine, I'm going to build my mood board the old fashioned way by doing a paper collage. Text on the screen reads, you will need images, magazines, scissors, glue, tape, construction paper, markers. Now it's your turn. Using your four components that you brainstormed, create a mood board to communicate the overall feeling of your designed meal time celebration. A sped up time lapse overhead shot of hands, scissors, glue, and paper as she works to make a mood board collage. Happy birthday Scorpios! Scrolling of Cooper Hewitt's collections page. Dive into Cooper Hewitt's collection to discover even more meal time treasures to inspire your celebration design. Once you've finished your mood board, you're ready to make your design for a meal time celebration a reality. We would love to see what you've designed. If you or an adult would like to share it with us on social media, use the hashtag Smithsonian EDU. learninglab.si.edu slash org slash Cooper Hewitt. Thank you so much for tuning in. For more ways to experience design at home, head over to our website, cooperhewitt.org, or check out our page on the Smithsonian Learning Lab. Thank you and we'll see you next time. Bye bye!